This nonprovisional application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7119(a) on Patent Application No(s). 02260373.5 filed in China on Sep. 28, 2002, which is(are) herein incorporated by reference.
The present invention relates to a fault-tolerant power supply module for a personal computer (PC) processor and particularly a power supply module to supply electric power to an upright or horizontal desktop PC processor.
The rapid technology innovation and development have greatly shortened the time of product replacement or upgrade. This is especially true for computer related products. Users often baffle the appropriate timing of purchasing or upgrading the devices, or whether to buy new ones to replace the old. In order to give consumers a balanced choice and simplify computer product design, these days most vendors try to offer compatibility and common specifications on products of similar nature. For instance, optical disk drives and disk drives have unified specifications. Besides reducing production cost, it also makes repairs and maintenance much easier.
In order to conform to this trend, computer power supply manufacturers also have reached some common understandings and developed power supply devices with common specifications. The casings to accommodate the power supply devices also have openings of the same specifications for connecting the power supply devices. However, at present power supply devices of AT or ATX specifications are fixedly installed inside the casings. Moreover, all of those power supply devices have the air fan mounted thereon. The air fan generally has the shortest life span. Once the air fan malfunctions or damages due to accumulation of dusts, the entire set of the power supply device has to be removed for repairs. And this will result in shutting down of the computer. Moreover, the growing popularity of multimedia operation has created greater power demands. The 250V specification now being generally adopted for power supply devices becomes not adequate to meet these requirements. To increase power supply, the whole set of power supply device must be removed for replacement. It incurs a lot of troubles.
Applicant discovers that in industrial server computers, many power supply devices adopt fault-tolerant design and have a retrievable construction to facilitate repairs and maintenance. However such a concept and design cannot be adopted on desktop personal computers due to the preset openings of the processor casing are formed according to standard specifications. This is a big drawback for the present personal computers. Nowadays, personal computers are very popular, and users are more sophisticated in technical knowledge and skills. With technology information becomes widely available, many users are capable of installing and disassembling computer facilities. To provide a design and structure that enables users to disassemble and install computer related facilities without affecting computer operation would be a great benefit to users.
Therefore the primary object of the invention is to resolve the aforesaid disadvantages. The power supply module of the invention includes a primary frame that has two corresponding slide racks located therein to form a retrieval space to house a power supply device and a secondary frame fastened to a seal side of the primary frame with a front end formed a power supply socket cluster. The retrieval space corresponds to a wide span area in a preformed opening on the rear end of the PC processor for the power supply module. The power supply socket cluster corresponds to a narrow span area of the opening. Such a structure conforms to the existing opening specifications and also can accommodate the fault-tolerant power supply module.